John Coates asked:


Marketing is critical to the success of any business, whether it is a one-person operation, a medium sized company or a multinational corporation. When running your home based business, it is even more important that marketing your business is done right, as you cannot afford to get it wrong. Remember that everything you do, and the way that you do it, is all marketing. Doing something well is usually as easy as doing it badly, but wins you a good reputation.

 

The UK’s Chartered Institute of Marketing definition of marketing is, “The management process that identifies, anticipates and supplies customer requirements efficiently and profitably.” So we can see that marketing is not just about advertising and selling products or services. It is about: finding out what potential customers want; creating the products and services that satisfy those needs; selling those products and services at the right price; making those products and services available in the right place.

 

To check if you are doing all of these we can look at the four elements of marketing that are known as the four Ps – Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Let us look closer at the first, your product.

 

Does your product meet the needs of your customers? If it is not perfectly suited to customers then you may want to make some changes. Ideally, your response to this question should be that no changes are required. How do your products compare with your competitors? If they are better or compare reasonably well, then you pass this criteria. But if they do not compare very well or you do not know, you need to urgently review this particular aspect.

 

Every product or service can be said to have a four-stage life cycle. Birth is when a new product is launched and introduced to prospective customers. Growth occurs when the product becomes popular and starts to sell well. Maturity is when the product is selling so well that you are unable to keep up with demand. The final stage is decline, when demand and sales fall. Customers have turned their attention elsewhere. Take a good look at your product or service and decide which of these stages are applicable.

 

The second element of the four Ps is price. The price should be thought to be fair by the customer. It does not necessarily have to be the cheapest, but value for money. It should be competitive so that when your customers compare your prices to those of your competitors, they think yours are within the price range they would expect to pay. The price you set for your product or service must be profitable. If you are not trading at a profit you will not be running your home based business for very long. Remember that the price you set has to cover the cost of your overheads: light, heating, telephone, advertising, etc, and still provide a profit. When costing you product, you should also include your time.

 

The third element of marketing is that of promotion. Promotion is how a product or service is brought to the attention of your potential customers. This can be done in a number of ways and can be paid promotion or free. The former includes advertising in newspapers, magazines, radio or television. Depending on your budget you may want to consider what could be classed as “free” promotion. This could include competitions, e.g. create a winning slogan and win a holiday for two. (Remember that competitions do not have to cost you anything if you consider joint ventures!). You may want to make special offers such as: buy one get one free; buy now and pay next year; 0% interest, etc.

 

The final element to marketing your business is place. This covers where the goods or services are offered for sale and then the way these goods or services are distributed and delivered to the customer. In running your business from home, you need to look at how you distribute and deliver to your customer. Running your home based business does not mean you can forget this element of marketing your business.

 

Marketing your business well, you must get the four Ps right; product, price, promotion and place. Analyze these areas, monitor your results and be prepared to change your marketing strategy. Be willing to ask your customers or clients what they think, and be prepared to act on the results.

Babubyname asked:


Positioning is another one of those marketing jargon words that everybody throws around and is important to understand. It’s also important to understand how positioning specifically applies to your small business marketing.

Basically a marketing position describes your unique place in the market. The key word here is unique. What makes you different from your competitors? What features and benefits do you offer your target market that the other players don’t?

Here are a few things that may go into your positioning:

-Price Point – This doesn’t necessarily mean you have the lowest price. You may be the most expensive in town, and that’s OK if you convince your customers you’re worth it.

-Service – Almost every business claims they have great service. If you can provide exceptional service compared to your competitors, your customers will remember you. I’ll never forget calling a surly plumber to try to get him to my house for an emergency on a weekend. he acted like he didn’t want my business and then told me it was going to be $200 for him just to show up, no thanks. I called roto-router who gave me amazing service, a guarantee, and the whole bill was less than $200. I now use them for all my plumbing.

-Features and Benefits – Positioning is not just about what makes you different, it’s also about what you emphasize. Folgers announces to the world that it’s “mountain grown coffee” ( a feature). Guess what? All coffee is mountain grown. Folgers just claimed this feature first. What’s something that none of your competitors are talking about?

-Credibility – Legal Seafood’s clam chowder is served at every presidential inauguration. Many products get celebrity endorsements. Many companies tout how long they’ve been in business. All of these things build trust in the mind of the consumer. What trust-building factors do you have that the competition does not?

-Negative Features – Is there something you don’t have that annoys customers of your competitors? I’m not saying use negative advertising, but just mention the feature and tie it to a benefit. I’m annoyed when I have to pay for parking to go shopping at Mall. Instead of touting free parking, a mall that wants to speak to me might declare, “you’ll never have to pay for parking”. This drives home the pain of shopping with a competitor without going negative.

-Anything Else – Literally anything that differentiates you from your competitors can be part of your positioning strategy – your location, your hours of operation, the way your office smells. Small business owners need to think creatively here.

In a great article by John Jantsch he states that a positioning strategy must answer the question, “why should I buy from you?” This is brilliant in it’s simplicity; it cuts through all the strategic junk that complicates marketing. If you can’t answer this question, your customer is not going to do the work to figure out an answer on his own.

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